Extract about Thomas Jefferson, by the Marquis de Chastellux

[April 13, 1782]

Let me then describe to you a man, not yet forty, tall, and with a mild and pleasing
countenance, but whose mind and knowledge could serve in lieu of all outward graces;
an American, who, without ever having quitted his own country, is Musician, Draftsman,
Geometrician, Astronomer, Natural Philosopher, Jurist, and Statesman; a Senator of
America, who sat for two years in that famous Congress which brought about the Revolution
... a Governor of Virginia, who filled this difficult station during the invasions
of Arnold, Phillips, and Cornwallis; and finally a Philosopher, retired from the world
and public business, because he loves the world only insofar as he can feel that he
is useful.

Published in François Jean de Beauvoir, marquis de Chastellux, Travels in North America in the Years 1780, 1781, and 1782, trans. and ed. Howard C. Rice Jr. (1963), 2:391, with some editorial modification.